Standing at the Gate of the Year by Griselda Heppel

By -
Happy new year! 

2024 brought much rejoicing to my wider family, as five new babies were born, beginning in January and culminating in twins in December. Babies bring hope and joy and also a little trepidation. We can’t tell what the future will bring for them; the best we can hope is that whatever it is, they will cope. 

In his Christmas broadcast of 1939, King George VI quoted these lines from a poem: 


And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown". 
And he replied: 
"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way". So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. 
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East. 

It's a truism that the world in which Minnie Louise Haskins wrote her poem (originally called God Knows) in 1908 was very different from today, and innumerable historians and social commentators will line up to tell me exactly how. But I’m just looking at this one particular aspect, that Haskins could draw on an assumption of religious belief that just isn’t there anymore. The 2021 census in England and Wales showed a decline to 46.2% of people identifying as Christian, down from 59.3% in 2011 and 71% in 2001. Other religions have filled some of that void but the biggest ‘winner’ of hearts and minds in this respect is simply ‘no religion’, which is what 37% of the 2021 census respondents recorded. For them Haskins’s poem presumably has no meaning and can offer no comfort. 

King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, and Princess Elizabeth 
with RAF personnel during World War II

But back in 1939, her lines proved inspirational to a nation facing the grimness and uncertainty of war, against an aggressive, ruthless enemy that had already overrun several European countries and was determined to conquer more. Her words spring from a faith that is in no way triumphant or sure it has the answers, the ‘We are in the Right because God is on Our Side’ approach, but one that acknowledges how little we know or understand, and that all we can do is trust that whatever the darkness, we will be led through to the other side. 

Realism, scientific knowledge and a healthy scepticism towards superstition render atheism a more rational position than belief in miracles, the Resurrection, and all the tenets of Christianity. 

But where is the comfort for atheists in times of bewilderment and danger? 

Someone should write a secular version of Haskins’s poem. We need it now.


Comments

Cecilia Peartree said…
How lovely to have so many babies in the family - congratulations! I agree about a more relevant version of the poem. I think there is something by TS Eliot about the turn of the year but it may be quite bleak (will go and look it up!).
1 January 2025 at 12:04
Peter Leyland said…
We had one new baby born Griselda, Oliver-an, to my nephew, Martin and Linh, who celebrated their wedding in Vietnam in 2022. Doesn't time pass so easily from one momentous event to another? And how things change. I remember growing up surrounded by religious beliefs which, while I may have challenged, them retain a place in my thinking which I am glad to have. There are times when knowing the 23rd Psalm can be a source of comfort in the many darknesses of life.

Thanks for your account of how a poem helped those facing a war torn world. One might argue that we can find new sources of religious experiences in literature much of which contains ideas derived from biblical texts.

Wishing you a happy new year too.
2 January 2025 at 10:35
Post a Comment